Podunk Wild Heart

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Blog

It's been over a month since I last posted but everyone is asleep and the house is quiet so I thought it was a good time to ramble rabbits at you.

I bred both my does back today, my Californian doe Trixie has 4 of her kits (2 bucks 2 does) still in the cage with her and what a mess they are making now! I posted them for sale on Craigslist since they are a couple days past 8 weeks old and definetly ready to go to another home. I promised my husband that I would try to sell this litter before putting them in our freezer so I think I will wait until 10 weeks or so and if they haven't sold I plan on processing them, brining them for several days and making rabbit tamales with them and whatever else strikes my fancy I just happened to see on a facebook rabbit recipe group that a lady made bbq rabbit and then with her leftover meat she made rabbit tamales and it sounds divine! I adore tamales of all meats-at the very least I haven't found one yet I didn't love. I guess I can't say I love all tamales ;p I know some do fish and sefood and I just haven't gone there. And as for my Florida White doe Buttercream...none of her litter survived. They all got drug out of the nestbox or got seperated and got too cold so now I have 2 freezer baggies full of dead kits I am contemplating what to do with. Raw feeding maybe? We do have a Boxer and 2 cats so I would imagine they would love it but I am just not sure how I might go about that yet. Buttercream is possibly already bred and due anytime, but since it is day 41 as of a half hour ago I doubt she carried full term I think she may have reabsorbed the kits or been going through a false pregnancy. I should go check on her now that I think about it-breeding back is supposed to jumpstart labour if she is pregnant, as is feeding small amounts of lavender.

Nope, no kits yet. I exposed both does to my buck again so there is approximately 4 hours between their exposures. I know some people don't double expose their does but I haven't had any issues with it yet though I haven't bred rabbits much. I had a Californian buck I named Mimsy I got when I was 17 and then after my husband and I got married a couple years later he had to have a rabbit he saw in a pet store-they said it was a buck but it turned out to be a doe; he named her Jynx and eventually I bred them but had to get rid of all my rabbits and setup a couple months later. I deeply regret getting rid of Jynx and Mimsy...they did fantastic their first breeding and their kits were extremely meaty and fast growing. But also they were our pets...yes I said it-they were pets. But really useful meat and manure producing ones

And then I got the trio I have now about 6 months ago or so. Trixie was given to me from a meat and show breeder, she was one of his foundation does but had missed a couple times then ate her last litter days before she came to me. She was sweet enough he didn't really want to eat her so he gave her away to me. And my Florida White pair I got for free off Craigslist from a girl who showed them and was going off to college-purebred pedigreed Florida Whites for free! Oh my I may have squeee'd a little with joy All three are older; Trixie is 2 almost 3 here in a few days and both FW's are 3 already. They had never been bred before and I do think that has caused some problems, especially with Buttercream and I am leaning toward the belief that breeding early helps a doe be a better mother. But I haven't given up on any of them.

While the rabbits were all free I will admit I splurged a bit on the cages...my rabbitry if you can call it that is in a bedroom in my apartment so I have Ferret Nation double cages with litter boxes. I have one set up right now and another brand new one (I bought both my FN cages off Craigslist one was previously used by a teacher with ferrets in his classroom and one was new in it's box) sitting in the back of my suburban. And my buck is in the biggest pet cage that Wilco sells with a plastic bottom. In theory I could have 4 does and a buck or 2 bucks 3 does...or 1 buck, 2 does and a grow out cage where they can be seperated by sex. There are different setups possible but at the moment as much as I would love to expand it just isn't the smartest thing to do. I really need to have some kits going to freezer camp so I can start cooking with rabbit since we have only had it once in a crockpotted soup, I just really need to ascertain how much we like rabbit and how often I should aim for it being on our table.

Speaking of liking things put on the table (of sorts) I bought a duck and a goose from my local grocery store the last time I went grocery shopping. I haven't seen either of those there before but I figured it might be a great time to try both I hope. I am mildly afraid of butchering poultry due to some headless blood spurting running around chickens and turkey when I was younger, and I genuinely love to watch ducks-better then CSI I tell you-so I am not sure I could hand raise some and then kill them unless I knew they were delicious. So I plan on practicing making duck and goose to test if we like it.